It's Poison
by MissSonic
Summary: At a party, a girl suddenly drops dead. She's young, pretty, a university student with no apparent enemies. But then, a piece she was writing for the university newspaper surfaces, and a whole host of enemies with it. And then there's that other thing..


CHAPTER ONE

"It's on Saturday, starts at eight. You really should come along; I know that you'd have fun."

She just looked at him, her left eyebrow raised.

"I don't mean come along as in– as a date," he said hastily. "But come as a person who's had a huge influence on me while I was writing this book. You actually have a reason to be there!"

"I'd love to go to a party, Castle, but I have one of those pesky jobs where you actually need to do a certain amount of work each week."

"Turned down again!" he said dramatically. "You can't keep this up forever, you know." He raised his hands in surrender, then pulled his phone from his pocked and tapped a few icons. "I sent you the details, just in case you finish early, or want a break. It's not that far from here, so you could just pop by."

"Castle–" Her voice was threatening now, and she straightened a stack of papers on her desk, signifying the amount and importance of the work she still had to do now that they had made the arrest.

"Fine, I know when my efforts are in vain." He looked around, then finally said, "If there's nothing for me to help with–"

"Oh, by all means, go," Beckett said, the relief in her voice a touch too obvious.

Castle pouted. "I can tell I'm not wanted here. But don't worry, I'll keep busy. I've got some paperwork of my own to do."

He took a taxi from the precinct to his apartment, busying himself with sending emails and instant messages on the way. The truth was that he was quite behind on the writing for his next book, and his publisher had been making his life hell. He couldn't help but feel that his inability to keep deadlines wasn't the only reason, since it had never got him into that much trouble with her in the past. Somehow, she didn't seem to have forgiven him for their last breakup – which seemed strange to him, since she had been the one to break it off, but there you were. For the past couple of weeks, she had been harassing him with emails, demanding to receive progress updates, word counts, sample scenes, anything you could possibly imagine.

She was also the reason why he had to attend this party on Saturday. Whether she wanted to keep him occupied on the weekends, or whether she actually thought that this was a good thing, he didn't know. To be fair, there were going to be a number of important people there, and it was a party that the publishing house was throwing in his honour – he had recently received an award for _Heat Wave_ – but he couldn't shake off the feeling that Gina got some sort of vindictive pleasure out of making plans for his weekends.

Having put some more thought into this, he considered that maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that Beckett hadn't accepted his invitation. He shuddered to think how Gina would have reacted to her presence, especially if she had dressed for the occasion.

All in all, it was probably for the best if he went alone. However, he had to admit that he wasn't looking forward to it, and having Beckett there would certainly have made things more interesting. It was strange; two years ago, these parties were what he lived for. Now, he seemed to have traded that in for early morning coffees around corpses, risking his life chasing murderers and other shady customers, and the insecurity that was working with Beckett – and there was no regret on his part.

He didn't see anyone from the twelfth at all for the next couple of days, but for once, he finally got a substantial amount written. Their last case had been fairly inspirational, and he had a ton of notes in loose pages lying around that were just waiting to be twisted together to form a plot.

Saturday still arrived too quickly for his liking; he was most likely going to spend the evening writhing under Gina's snide comments and jabs at the deadlines that had flown past, and she would certainly keep him from engaging in conversation with people that might actually interest him.

After he had spent close to fifteen minutes doing the 'blue tie, red tie, bow tie, no tie' dance, Alexis had returned from the park, and he had gladly handed the difficult decision over to her. Less fortunately, his mother had returned at this point, and had had quite a few things to say about his attire. When he finally charged out of the elevator downstairs – without a tie – and hailed down a cab, he had exactly fifteen minutes to arrive before Gina would have his entrails as an entrée.

Indeed, when he did arrive after a hazardous drive, even with a minute to spare by his watch, Gina was standing outside the covered entrance, tapping the carpeted floor with one of her midnight-blue high heeled shoes. When he left the car, she looked at him, with her arms crossed, thin lips, and a deep frown, and he instantly decided to count this as a working expense and charge her with the cab ride.

For the sake of the evening and what it still might be worth – and also because he was still going to win this, and not descend to her level – he put on a smile as he approached her, both hands outstretched.

"I specifically told you to get here half an hour early, so that we could go through the official stuff–"

"This is a party though, right? You haven't lured me to a press conference under false pretenses, because if so, I really think I should go back and get my tie."

"Well, yes, obviously this is a party, but there are going to be some reporters in the crowd – hand-picked, of course, and mostly photographers, but I still want to make sure you don't say anything wrong about the _Heat_ series and what's in its future."

"Darling, I couldn't tell them anything about that, since my publisher refuses to let me know whether they are extending the deal or not."

"Don't call me 'darling'," she snapped, and he half expected her to stomp her foot on the floor; but then, she probably valued those shoes too much.

"Shall we, then?" He extended his arm to her, and watched the battle in her head, until she grabbed it almost forcefully and steered him into the building.

After he had shaken countless hands, and finally shaken off Gina, Castle was surprised to find that the party wasn't that bad after all. The drinks were pleasant, and there was a fair number of attractive women who flattered him with their ill-disguised interest. There was a very tanned waitress who kept carrying the champagne tray past him, a brunette, fit photographer who was constantly throwing him glances that were hard to read, and one of the editors, who continually tried to engage him in conversation so that she would have excuses to laugh and touch his arm. Deep down, he wasn't honestly interested in any of them, but it was nice to experience that flattery and admiration again for a change. Considering that he was a writer who heavily relied on the immediate popularity with his fans with each new book that he published, he possibly had isolated himself from the public life of a writer too much lately. He certainly wouldn't mention this in front of Gina, because he did not want to grant her that triumph, and the nagging would find no end.

About an hour into the celebration, when everyone had arrived and no one had had a chance to flee yet, he joked in his head, he had held his short speech. As soon as he had finished, Gina had ushered him off the stage, and taken charge of it herself. He didn't mind that much though; he had got his laughs and applause, and when he descended from the small stage, the cute photographer was waiting for him. He now realised that she was far younger than he had originally thought, and suddenly felt his attraction for her wane. She still was sweet, though, and was very obviously eager to talk to him.

"Mr Castle?" she asked, hovering on the balls of her feet. "Hi, my name is Cassie Spencer. I was wondering – do you have a moment? I really need to talk to you about something."

"Sure, what can I do for you?"

She blinked at him several times, rather heavily, as though she was trying to get him back into focus. He put a hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes.

"Hey, are you all right?"

"Hm? Yes, just feeling a bit... dizzy," she replied, but seeming to steady herself again. "I really need to–"

"I'm all yours," he said quickly, "but I think I better get you something to drink first. A Martini, perhaps?"

"I can't drink, I'm working." She smiled and pointed at her camera.

He took her empty glass, and said, "What were you having then? Orange juice?"

"Yes, but I'd rather just have a glass of water now, I think."

"Gotcha." He turned and walked to the bar, where he left the empty glass and ordered two glasses of water – he would feel bad drinking scotch while she had to stick with the non-alcoholic liquids. While he was waiting for the bartender to return to him, he threw a worried glance over his shoulder at the girl, trying to diagnose her from where he was standing. Now that he had a second look at her, he noticed that she really looked awfully skinny and pale. What he had previously interpreted as fitness now looked more like plain thinness to him. Maybe she was anorexic – though there was always the possibility that she hadn't eaten anything in anticipation of the big event she had been assigned to this night.

He decided to do the only sensible thing, and nick one of the trays of canapés from behind the bar and take it back to her. He rearranged them slightly, so that the two glasses he had been handed would fit on there, too, and turned to carry it back to Cassie.

There were a few seconds in which he didn't quite realise what was happening. She was holding onto the side of the stage to steady herself, and something was dripping from her face.

Then, all her muscles seemed to give way, and she dropped to the ground.

Castle shoved the tray into someone's hand, not caring that both glasses fell over, and people were complaining loudly. By the time he got to her, others had noticed the girl lying motionless in a corner, dark hair hanging over her face, and a small trickle of blood in the corner of her mouth.

By the time the first of them had dialed 911, it was already too late.


End file.
